Research Catalogue

This is an exposition in progress. Starting in the 2021/22 season, the professorship Artistic Connective Practices organises and curates a series of encounters with practitioners, the research team of the professorship and audience, in order to explore the notion of Artistic Connective Practices.

Anansi’s Web- Entanglements without Tripping, a Ph.D. research fellow project led by Thomas Talawa Prestø, delves into the intricate weaving of African Diaspora practices and praxis. This exploration uses several conceptual tools to examine how performance can catalyze personal, social, and communal transformation. At its core is ChoreoNommo, a praxis grounded in the African concept of Nommo, which emphasizes the power of words and gestures to create tangible change. ChoreoWanga addresses the architectural and structural aspects of performances, focusing on how these elements can hold and transmit transformative energy (Ashé). PerformancePwen focuses on the energetic effects performances have on communities, highlighting the reciprocal relationship between performer and audience. The Talawa Technique™emphasizes a holistic and culturally rooted approach to dance, and Committography underscores the importance of strategic involvement in arts organizations and policy-making bodies to influence systemic change. The project culminates in two major works: Jazz Ain’t Nothing, an interdisciplinary dance performance incorporating song, dance, music, and visual elements, and That Voudou That We Do, a performative lecture. Both works are accompanied by the Cognoscape, a new writing methodology developed by Prestø. The Cognoscape provides a non-chronological onboarding into the artist’s knowledge scape, offering insights into the artist's praxis, beliefs, and reflections. It serves as a self-referential tool that captures the culmination of practice and experience, focusing on how knowledge manifests rather than attributing ownership to an individual author

"Metamorphoses - The performance of process" is an exposition of choreographic objects. Operating in the realms of drawing, photography, and video, these objects each address a poetics of transformation. The collections expose the simple materiality of change; the wind scattering paper pieces - or being transformed into sound by the paper walls of an accordion. ::: Contextual note: Metamorphoses is the first cycle of the choreographic project Love, polyphonic. The Metamorphoses Cycle consists of four parts: 1. The Performance of Process 2. Performance object 3. International performance workshop tour 4. Choreographic Toolbox #1: Metamorphoses (publication) The project Love, polyphonic extends over six years. The work approaches movement, sound, geometry and language through the concept of "love" as a prism. A force that can only be recognized indirectly. A tool for listening to the world; polyphonic. The series "The Performance of process", which was shared on the Instagram account love_polyphonic and Black Box teater's websites through the spring of 2021, invites us into the process of Metamorphoses. The performance object that premiered at Black Box Teater September 18th 2021 was a collaboration with cellist and composer Lene Grenager and dancer Cecilie Lindeman Steen. The performance was presented in collaboration with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. The collaborators for the international performance workshop tour was MAD, Firenze (IT), La Regarde du Cygnet, Paris (FR) and Dansekapellet, København (DK). The Choreographic Toolbox #1: Metamorphoses (publication) was launched at Norma T in collaboration with Mette Edvardsen on March 7th 2023, and is distributed nationally and internationally by Tekstallemenningen. ::: Janne-Camilla Lyster (b. 1981) is a Norwegian choreographer, writer and performer. She gained her artistic PhD with the project «Choreographic poetry: Creating literary scores for dance», and has a particular interest in pre-figurative practices, including scores, experimental notation and notation systems for movement. She has published a number of poetry collections as well as novels, plays, essays and performance scores.

Ars Memoriae, The Art to Remember analyzes the role of art within the larger history and evolution of external memory devices. It looks at material traces of remembering and the invention of an ever-changing body of language expressions, like signs and symbols, to enhance communication capabilities. I followed the process of externalizing emotions, knowledge, and information, starting in the Palaeolithic Stone Age about 3 million years ago, until, in a speculative future, it will be internalized again using artificial wetware, neuro-computers, and DNA coding. > Click on the image to download the PDF.

Why I paint Thousands of Circles explores psychological barriers and multilayered themes that stem from a single horrific event that involved Moran’s father and his brother. The artist collates information, photos and constructs an ar(t)chaeological archive where family photos, product imagery, together with newspaper clips to form units of a historical and psychological mind map. The exposition becomes an auto-ethnographical exploration of mid 90's working class North West London. The repetitive painting process, exposed and documented in the exposition, functions as transformative method, where ambiguous feelings of a violent upbringing are directed towards the creation of a visual system with an inherent logic – “creating some kind of beauty out of ugliness.”

The project explores the artistic potential of unpredictability, specifically within the context of electronic music. By referring to an original instrument design—including programming a number of randomized systems—a series of compositions for keyboard instruments were developed. The central theme is the relationship between dialogue and loss of control during the creative process. This project was documented intermediately with new music, as well as technological and procedural reflections.